Men's Tennis

SCIAC’s Longest Active Championship Streak Unanimously Expected to Continue for CMS Men’s Tennis

The longest active championship streak across all SCIAC sports is unanimously expected to reach 20 straight years of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges titles according to the 2026 SCIAC Men’s Tennis Preseason Poll, as voted by the league’s head coaches.
 
No. 4 CMS and five-time Coaching Staff of the Year winner Paul Settles have not skipped a beat since last year’s NCAA Championship semifinals appearance. There are few accolades left to be earned by singles national champion and College Sports Communicators Academic All-America Team Member of the Year Advik Mareedu atop the lineup. Classmate Warren Pham joined Mareedu on the All-SCIAC First Team last spring while rookie Caleb Settles made the Second Team as part of the Stags’ top doubles tandem by year’s end with fellow first-year Brandon Vu. Josh Kim also cracked the Second Team, with Anirudh Gupta a year removed from recognition. The rookie duo of Henry Wilson and Sibi Raja made a run to the ITA Cup final this fall for what appears to be as potent a team as even the dominant Stags have ever compiled.
 
First in line to challenge the champions is Sixth Street rival No. 14 Pomona-Pitzer Colleges. The Sagehens are led by ITA National Rookie of the Year Drew Goldman who made the final of the Fall ITA West Regional in singles as well as doubles, teaming with Jay Mallampati. Luke Feng returns as a Second Team All-SCIAC pick last year and a trio of four-star recruits on tennisrecruiting.net composed the 12th-ranked class in Division III.
 
Gustavo Marcanth is the top returning name for No. 17 University of Redlands after stepping up to the First Team last spring. Samuel Parsons and Mateen Ghafarshad won the backdraw of the Fall ITA Regional. Most of the weapons from last season return for No. 31 Caltech, including Constantin Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne who matched Marcanth’s feat and reached the semifinal of the Fall ITA Regional. Andrew Zabelo was a Second Team selection for the Beavers, who also brought in a bevy of new faces comprising the 18th-ranked class on TRN.
 
Chapman University’s Aram Izmirian headlines the lineup as a Second Team selection for the Panthers, who will be led by Evan Parry. Occidental College nabbed the final No. 40 spot in the ITA rankings but will not be sneaking up on anybody as two-time All-SCIAC Second Teamer Ace Andres and 2024 First Team selection Ronald Chen are back for another go. Andres paired with Nabil Farhat to reach the backdraw semifinals at the Fall ITA Regional. Mateo Sonaglia and Jake Anderson were the most successful doubles pairing for California Lutheran University this fall, also reaching the semifinals of the backdraw while Sam Neijeinhuizen made the top-flight singles backdraw semifinal for Whittier College.
 
Scrimmages and non-DIII matches litter the early days of February before a couple Northwest Conference regional clashes for CLU and Chapman on Feb. 13 to kick off a busy weekend that involves almost all eight teams in action.
 
2026 SCIAC Men’s Tennis Preseason Poll
1. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 64 points (8 first-place votes)
2. Pomona-Pitzer, 53 pts
3. Redlands, 51 pts
4. Caltech, 38 pts
5. Chapman, 27 pts
5. Occidental, 27 pts
7. California Lutheran, 20 pts
8. Whittier, 8 pts